Now The Stars Are Up
by kidenagain
Summary: A short story about losing a parent.  Sam, Sam/Freddie.


Now:

In the backseat of Spencer's car, Freddie has Sam's legs across his lap, his hands on her nylon covered legs. He's pinching at the pantyhose, scrunching the see-through black fabric between his fingers, and Sam's eyes are open but she's not looking at anything. He says, flattening his hands out on her shins, "There is so much about you I don't know."

Sam closes her glassy eyes and says, "There is so much about me I wish I didn't."

01.

Death is like this: a postcard marked 'Return to Sender', calenders stuck on January until December, her mother never getting over a love that couldn't last – empty bottles of whiskey under beds and a wedding band that doesn't mean anything, but wearing it anyway. Time, Sam figures, never passes at the right speed. She's always wishing for days to be shorter and for years to feel longer. She never has enough time for anything, even when she spends all of it doing absolutely nothing at all. And maybe that is the problem altogether: You don't know you're at the end of the race until you've lost it, and there is no getting back all the days that stretched on for years, when there were still opportunities to change.

Everyone thinks they are going to live forever, until they don't.

You tell yourself Next Year. And Next Time. And next, next, next.

And then, suddenly, there is a call or a knock on the door, and. And then there is nothing.

Melanie is crying, big fat tears soaking into Sam's lap. She wipes her nose on Sam's jeans, heaving, choking for air. Sam has her hands in Melanie's hair, petting, twisting familiar blonde curls around her own steady fingers. Melanie says, "I'm so glad you weren't there, Sammy."

Grasping at Sam's t-shirt, she raises her head and says, "I can't believe he's gone." Her face is red and blotchy, wet from her own tears. Sam isn't crying.

"What do we do now?" Melanie asks, looking at Sam. She's always looking at Sam.

Sam doesn't say anything though, just lets Melanie fall against her, wraps her arms around her sister.

What do they do now.

02.

The display on her phone says Carly's calling. Then again. And again. Until it's Spencer. And then, fifteen minutes after that, it's Freddie.

She stops pressing Ignore. Just lets the phone ring and ring and ring, until it blurs into the background noise of her mother on the phone in the next room. She hears words like 'wake' and 'burial' and 'prayer cards'. Hears, again, the ring of her cell phone. Melanie pushes her face into Sam's shoulder, where they are both laying on Sam's small twin bed, tries to disappear. She doesn't, so Sam holds on to her a little tighter.

On the voicemails she never checks:

I"Oh, Sam. Sam – I'm... I'm so sorry. Please call me back. God, I'm sorry. I just want to know you are okay. I mean, I know you aren't okay. But just. I don't know. Please call me back. I love you, okay? And me and Spencer are here if you need anything, okay. Is Melanie, alright? And your mom? Oh, please call me back. I'm just. IYour dad. I'm so sorry./I"

"Hey Sam, it's Spencer. Carly just told me about your dad. I'm sorry, kiddo. We're here if you need anything. And you can come by whenever you want, you know that. Give your mother and sister my condolences. Love you, kid."

"I don't know, um. I don't know what to say. What can anyone say, I guess. You can call me, if -. I know I've never said it, but you know I love you, right? The arguing... it's not. You can call me. You're my best friend."/I

03.

It's 3 am when Sam picks the lock to Carly's apartment. Melanie is fisting the back of Sam's hoodie – she hasn't let go of her since they stuck out of the house – she says, "You don't have a key?"

Sam almost laughs. Of course she Ishould/I have a key, she nearly lives here, after all. Instead she says, "I would, but what's the fun in that."

"Are they going to get mad that we're breaking in?" Melanie whispers.

"The Shays? Never," Sam says, closing the door softly behind them.

They sneak up to Carly's room, all careful steps – Sam warning Melanie where the creaks are in the floor, steering her around Spencer's piled boxes of art supplies and old bicycles. She grabs a spare blanket from the hallway closet, and once in Carly's room, gestures to the brand new sofa. Melanie lays down, eyes closed and already half-sleep before Sam can spread the blanket out over her. Sam smiles vaguely, glancing over to the Carly-shaped lump on the bed, still sound asleep. No use waking her up, Sam figures. There is nothing she wants to talk about tonight anyway. Instead, she lays down on the ice cream sandwich sofa, curls her legs up to her chest, not bothering to find another blanket.

In the dark, Melanie's voice is heavy with sleep and crying. She whispers, "I love you, Sam."

Sam closes her eyes tight, pretends she's already asleep.

04.

She wakes up to Melanie sitting up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Carly is already gone, and sparing a look at the clock – 9:30 – she's already showered and had breakfast. Melanie's only been awake for 2 minutes, but her eyes are already filled with tears. So Sam reaches over, takes her hand, says, "We have to go down there, okay?"

Melanie nods.

"Deep breaths."

Melanie nods again, a little more determined. And so they go, Sam's sneakers falling heavy on all the loose floorboards they studiously avoided the night before. Melanie's socks slipping along behind her, her hand wrapped around Sam's wrist.

Downstairs smells like bacon and maple syrup, fried ham, freshly squeezed orange juice. Sam gets a snapshot of The Shays before they notice them: Spencer over the stove, flipping the bacon – Carly at the table, hands sticky, licking orange juice from her fingertips. They aren't talking. There are no brilliant Shay smiles. And Sam feels guilty for it.

Spencer notices them first and he lets out a small breath, like he'd be holding it all morning. He's moves towards them, arms alright outstretched, says, "Hey girls." Hugs them like they are the ones who died. Like if he lets them go, they'll be gone forever. Carly's head snaps up and she starts rubbing the juice off her hands, scrubbing them furiously on her jeans. Spencer lets them go just in time for Carly to step in. She pulls them both against her, and she's crying. It makes Melanie start crying too, and Cary is saying things like II'm sorry/I and II love yous/I and Ioh, God, oh, God/I.

Sam isn't sure she Ican/I cry anymore.

05.

There are small miracles.

The bacon is good, the pancakes are fluffy, and Spencer has decided to distract everyone with Tales of Misadventure Starring Spencer and Socko and Sometimes T-Bo. They make Melanie laugh, and Sam is grateful for it. Grateful no one is asking how she is, or what she feels, or how she's going to get through the next few days. How they are getting to Oregon, for the funeral. How she's going to stand the sight of it all – the coffin, the open grave, her father there, not moving or smiling or ribbing on her. How. How. How.

And there it is, right there at the kitchen table where anyone can see, she's going to start crying. All those Hows feel like the world crushing her. Spencer punctuates a punchline by slamming his hand down on the table – everyone laughs – but Sam's eyes are burning and she's shaking. She can't breathe.

No one notices but Spencer, and Sam meets his eyes for a split-second then excuses herself with a voice that doesn't crack. Another thing to be grateful for.

Sam doesn't know how, but when she comes out of the bathroom – as collected and calm as she can manage – Carly and Melanie are gone. It's just Spencer there, standing near the computer, unsure of what to do with his arms as if they'd just sprouted there, foreign and new.

He says, "I suggested Carly take Melanie to Clothes and Whatever. I guess she needs something nice to wear for..."

"Yeah," Sam says, looking to run up the stairs and away from Spencer's concerned looks. "Right."

"Sam," Spencer calls tentatively, "I -."

She's across the room and hugging him before he can finish whatever it was. Spencer holds her like he was waiting for it and she presses her face against his chest, sobs crawling up out of her turning stomach. She needs this, needs Spencer who is older and knows how to do things, knows how to make things right and beautiful again. Sam claws at his shirt as he leads her over to the couch, sits them both down. She says, "Please, please, please," - but she doesn't even know what she's asking for anymore. To stop crying, maybe. To make it all go away. She's never felt so young before.

Spencer holds her so tight, whispers over and over, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." Says it like if he tells her enough, it'll be true.

She wants – oh, she just Iwants/I so much. All that time back to do things differently, to call when she meant to, to not be so closed and horrible, to forgive him. To be forgiven.

They sit for a while, Spencer's hand rubbing her back, Sam crying into his shoulder. Until Spencer starts untangling them, pulling away from her, and Sam wants to bring him back, needs – she always needs so much. But Spencer leans in close to her, his hands cradling her reddened, swollen face, he says, "It's okay."

Sam hunches over, curls like she can disappear into herself, crying so much it's hard to breathe. And Spencer is gone, but there is a hand in her hair, gently moving across her shoulder and down her arm. The delicate touch makes Sam feel delicate too, it's new and terrifying and she's naked, right down to her bones, for once. But almost familiar fingers lace together with hers, and she's being pulled closer to Freddie, and he's hugging her against him, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Brokenly, she whispers his name, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against his neck. And when he says her name back, his voice is wet and just as broken.

06.

It's hard to look at Melanie. To see your own grief staring back at you.

There is a reason no one takes pictures at funerals. It's too much to see, the way your body looks so tired, your red eyes, the mourning in them. Melanie cries like Sam cries – moves, and sleeps, and has the same terrified face. Sam can't bear to look at her, only seeing herself.

Wearing black, everyone looks the same. Melanie and Sam stand in front of the same mirror, the same sadness looking back, and Sam lifts her hair up as Carly zips up their dresses. They are basically wearing the same dress. Everything just the same, except Sam slides into a jacket, has a pair of chucks on her feet.

And she keeps her hair down, for the same reason she always does. As if she can hide from the world behind it.

"Ready?" Carly says, but neither of them answer.

07.

An hour after the burial, Sam can't remember anything. She doesn't know how many flower arrangements there were or how many people. She doesn't remember what the coffin looked like. Melanie makes a plate of food for their mother, sits with her alone at a table in whatever restaurant they're in. Sam doesn't even know.

She's leaving anyway.

Melanie nods understandingly. Maybe she wants to run away too, but she won't. Melanie has always been the better daughter.

Sam hugs her mother, neither of them crying, just alike (Sam has always been more like their mother, Melanie like dad). Her mother tells her she loves her, that it's okay she leaves. Everyone knows. Everyone understands. Sam touches her mother's cheek, pressing her palm against the heated skin there, and for the first time in days says 'I love you' back.

Carly is waiting by the car with Spencer, but Freddie is standing at the door. She says, "I'm ready to go."

He holds out his hand and Sam knows he's only asking, she doesn't have to. But she does anyway. Freddie's never told her he's sorry for her loss, but he intertwines their fingers, and when she looks into his eyes she can see him grieving for her. She can Isee/I. So she pulls him with her into the woman's bathroom.

She can see.

"Sam," Freddie says, not gentle with her anymore, but just IFreddie/I. "What are you Idoing/I?"

Leaning back against the door, Sam tugs him closer to her. She says, "Just -." But changes her mind. Instead she moves him closer, so they are nearly touching. Her hands on his hands, she moves one of his to press against her jaw and the other to the small of her back.

In the silence, their faces just inches apart, Sam says, breathing unsteady,"ILean./I"

08.

In the backseat of Spencer's car, Freddie has Sam's legs across his lap, his hands on her nylon covered legs. He's pinching at the pantyhose, scrunching the see-through black fabric between his fingers, and Sam's eyes are open but she's not looking at anything. He says, flattening his hands out on her shins, "There is so much about you I don't know."

Sam closes her glassy eyes and says, "There is so much about me I wish I didn't."

"I do," Freddie says, unlacing her chucks and pulling them off her feet. "I want to know everything."

A few tears slide down the sides of Sam's face, but she doesn't wipe them away. She says, "Did I ever tell you about my dad?"


End file.
